1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a circuit device having a semiconductor component.
2. Description of the Related Art
Voltage-controlled power semiconductor switch components, e.g., metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (“MOSFET) or isolated gate bi-polar transistor (“IBGT), are generally connected at their gate, which is used as the control input, to a series device, which may be an activation, driver, and/or protective circuit. Active clamping circuits are known as the protective circuit, by which a power transistor is actively notched up if a clamping voltage is exceeded and in this way the voltage is limited. If the circuit is designed as an integrated circuit (IC), the clamping circuit may be monolithically integrated into the component.
The gate is generally electrically separated from the conductive semiconductor areas of the power terminals via a gate oxide layer. For proper function, the gate must be sufficiently insulated; this property may be tested by measuring the gate leakage current before the circuit is put into operation. Furthermore, the semiconductor component may be subjected to a gate stress test, in which a high voltage is applied between the gate and a power terminal, e.g., between gate and source, and pre-aging of the gate oxide layer is performed to prevent early failures in the field (burn in).
Due to the fixed wiring of the semiconductor component with the series device, however, the problem results that the gate leakage current for testing the gate oxide quality may not be measured independently of the current flowing through the series device.
In order to nonetheless allow such a measurement, sometimes two bond pads which are not contacted with one another are provided, one of which is connected to the gate and the other of which is connected to the series device, so that initially a measurement may be carried out by contacting the gate measuring pad using a test needle and subsequently the two bond pads may be contacted with one another by a wire bond.
For this purpose, however, a manufacturing step of bonding is necessary, which causes additional costs and for which a corresponding installation space is necessary, which interferes in particular in the case of an integrated circuit. Furthermore, wire bonds are sensitive to mechanical influences, so that their automotive suitability is often limited with respect to the typical shocks.
Furthermore, it is known to irreversibly destroy structures. In the case of safety structures or “fuse” structures, for example, the structure is transferred by an electrical pulse or a laser cut, for example, from a low-resistance, i.e., generally sufficiently conductive state, into a high-resistance, i.e., essentially insulating state. Accordingly, structures are also known which may be transferred in the reverse direction, i.e., from a high-resistance initial state into a low-resistance state. U.S. Pat. No. 5,818,749 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,773,967 disclose such fusible link structures, which are also referred to as “antifuses” and may be irreversibly transferred by a power pulse from a high-resistance state into a low-resistance state. In this case, a pn-transition is destroyed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,818,749, and a dielectric, insulating layer is destroyed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,773,967.